Jain Journal 2001 04

SR No.: 520142
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publication Year: 2001
Total Pages: 92
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Journal, & India
File Size: 4 MB

Page 16

JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXV, No. 4 April 2001
"Nahavana is in all probability, as is generally believed by modern historians. the same as Nahapana, the Maha-Kṣatrapa of Ksaharata family, who is mentioned in several inscriptions and a large number of whose coins is also discovered. ...The modern historical researches put Nahapana in the period after the commencement of the Vikrama era.... If we take out 40 years of Nahavana from 470 years, the interval given in these traditions between Mahavira nirvāņa and the commencement of the Vikrama era, the difference between these two important events will be 430 years. This will give (430+58) 488 B.C., as the date of Mahavira nirvāṇa. This will place Mahavira's death about a year before that of Buddha, who died, as suggested above, in 487 B.C. These two dates will reconcile most of the Buddhist as well as the Jaina traditions about these two great religious teachers." (pp. 831832)
160
We fully agree with him that whatsoever date we accept, the Buddha and Mahavira must be shown contemporaries; otherwise the date cannot be correct. But we suggest a modification in it:
The Christian year changes in our Pausa. This may be applicable to B.C. dates as well. If we say that Mahavira died in 488 B.C. and the Buddha died in 487 B.C., seemingly there is a difference of one year between these two events. But really speaking, there is a difference of 61⁄2 months only, because Mahavira died in the month of Kartika in 488 B.C., the year changed in Pausa and 487 B.C. began from that month and in Vaisakha of the same year (487 B.C.) the Buddha died. From Buddhist literature we know that some time, evidently more than one or two years, passed between the deaths of the two teachers, because it is recorded that the Buddha passed his rainy season (evidently in 488 B.C., at Vaisali. So 488 B.C. as the date of Mahavira's death will have to be given up and we should see if we can find out a date of Mahavira's death somewhere near that, which is in keeping with other details.
After a comparison of the details of the lives of the Buddha and Mahavira, especially the places where they spent their rainy seasons, we have come to the conclusion that Mahavira died in 490 B.C. (November) and that he had been born in 561 B.C. (April). He was alive for 71 years and 62 months. The Buddha was born in 567 B.C. (May) and he died in 487 B.C. (May). He was alive exactly for 80 years.
The point which induced us to try to find out the correct date of Mahavira is this:
In the Buddhist Tripitaka literature (Maj. Nik. II. 3.7) it is stated in